


You Will Remember That

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Telltale Batjokes [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Arkham Asylum, M/M, john is actually kind of a sweetheart if you ignore how effortlessly sinister he is, look we were all thinking about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-15 21:35:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: Bruce intervenes in the fight. Bruce does not make his phone call. John is delighted to show him around, in the mean time.





	1. True Ending

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking to myself that just having them discharge Bruce for being a problem patient was a bit of a cop out, and it opened up a window for this little beauty. Here's a fun [song](https://soundcloud.com/theflamingdevilles/love-sick-deranged)
> 
> I'm assuming anybody who wants to read this has already watched or played telltale, so I'm not going deep into the events that led up to this AU

When Leland says that she’s going to find you a room with fewer bloodstains, you don’t expect that room to be occupied. Leland stands at the door, signing off on some slip that she hands off to a passing orderly. “It’s unorthodox,” she says,“ but I promise you it’s only for one night. Two at the most.”

You glare at the bed they’ve dragged against the wall of this cell, slightly askew on the tile. “This can’t be ethical. This isn’t a state prison.”

“Truthfully, Bruce?” she says, with a grim eyebrow lift. “We weren’t supposed to be assigned any more patients this quarter. Your room was the last available one until we discharge our next ward.”

John, lying back on the opposite bed with his feet kicked up on the wall, adds, “Actually there’s two, but one of them has black mold and the other one has a _chunk_ taken out of the wall.”

“John,” Leland says.

From underneath his hand, like it’s a secret, he adds, “Maxie took a disliking to the décor.”

Leland sighs. “Our biohazard maintenance is off the clock and the union won’t let us call him back in until tomorrow. I promise you, as soon as we have your room scrubbed properly, you’ll be back to your accustomed level of privacy.”

“My accustomed level of privacy doesn’t involve twenty-four hour surveillance,” you point out, eyeing the camera mounted in the corner of the room.

John laughs, a little harder and darker than you are entirely comfortable with. Quite a lot of things seem to be funny to him.

“More or less,” Leland amends. She scribbles something final looking on her clipboard, and then she says, “John, make sure that Bruce stays on the straight and narrow. No more _riots_. I’m trusting you to be a good influence.”

“You can count on me Doc,” he says.

“Lights out at ten,” Leland says to you. “Doors lock then. Group therapy is at 8 AM, but I think it’s better if we avoid introducing you to that kind of environment while things are still so tenuous. You’ll have one-on-one with me at 9.”

And then she leaves, the door open and taunting behind her. You guess you should be grateful that they’re still giving you open door privileges, after you threw yourself into the middle of a _brawl_ , but you’re having a hard time being gracious about any of this. It’s taking all you have just to remain appropriately civil with Leland, who is genuinely innocent of your situation here. If only you had been able to make that call. Some distraction John made you.

As soon as the sound of her footsteps have disappeared, John leaps out of bed. He _throws_ himself out of bed, lunges almost, throwing himself into orbit around you like a comet caught in the sun’s gravity. He circles you.

“We are gonna have so much _fun_ , Brucie,” he says.

For the umpteenth time today, you force yourself not to track him as he circles you. He has this vulture-tiger-coyote fascination with your unprotected back, and you are pretty understandably prickled by it. You can feel him like a wave of electromagnetic interference over your skin.

“What’s your idea of _fun_?” you ask.

It has not escaped your attention the way he says certain things, the meaningful lowering of eyelids as he insinuates—what? Well, you can make a guess. This may not be a prison exactly, but in every way that matters, you haven’t detected much of a difference. Now, after everything he’d hinted in the rec room, you’re not as sure that you know what he wants, but you’re still waiting for the shoe to drop.

John throws himself back onto his bed (not yours, you notice). He crosses his legs. “Well, the rec room was pretty fun today, don’t you think?”

“I don’t generally categorize being shivved that way, actually,” you say.

“You don’t?” he says, tapping the corner of his mouth in a thoughtful way. “ _I_ was thoroughly entertained. Let me just say, it is a _pleasure_ to watch you work. You really got right in there! And Zsasz, he’s no toddling bedwetter like _some_ of these numbskulls. He’s a real piece of work!”

“Yeah,” you say. “Thank for _that_.”

He sits forward. “Tsk tsk, there’s no need to take that tone with your good buddy. It’s not my fault you missed your window of opportunity. Not that I’m not glad to have a little more quality time with you, don’t get me wrong, but you’ve got places to _be_ , people to _see_.”

You say nothing. He’s right, it’s not his fault. That is to say, his plan would have worked if you had only chosen to go along with it. But you didn’t, and now you’re here, sharing a cell with him until your lawyers can manage to tie this place up in enough red tape to open up another fleeting window of opportunity. You’re confident that Alfred is out there working on it. He never lets you down. It’s just _time_ , which you don’t have anywhere enough of.

“Anyways,” John says. “I think you _do_ like it.”

“Like what?” you say.

He twists back and makes a motion like slamming a bat into something, throws his whole body into it. “The _violence_ , Brucie. The action! I saw you out there, you’re a _livewire_ ,” he laughs. “I like that about you. You know _just_ what to do with that body of yours.”

     I couldn't just ignore it  
     No one could enjoy that  
     >it wasn't that impressive

 

You cross your arms. “I’m hardly some kind of action hero. Recreational judo—some boxing, whatever’s new in town—I just do enough to keep fit.”

John plants his chin in his hand. “Come on now,” he says, “you can lie better than _that_.”

You find yourself speechless.

“You wanna give it another try?” he offers, helpfully.

"I'm-" you say, “I’m tired of talking about myself,” you say, which is not untrue.

John nods. “That’s fair,” he says.

And that’s it. He seems satisfied to leave it there, digging in his mattress to find a skein of red yarn which he twists around his fingers in a bizarre cat’s cradle, quietly manipulating the threads until they resemble a mandala.

You clear your throat, not sure that you like the silence any more than you liked the conversation. “Isn’t that banned?” you ask.

“Oh sure,” he says. He glances at you, eyes glittering like a window full of television displays. “But you won’t tell on me, will you?”

“…No,” you say.

He gives you a bright smile. “Don’t worry,” he says. “We’re gonna get you out of here. When one door closes—” he draws the cradle tight, with a twang, “—another one opens.”

 

 

 

Wake up call at 7:00 finds you already up and pacing beneath the window of the room that everyone else is too polite to call a cell. John slides into his slippers and coaxes you out, leads the way to the kitchen full of undercooked hash and cold eggs. He doesn’t seem interested in the food, but he watches with a weirdly maternal zeal as you finally scoop up a serving for yourself, not quite moving out of your way until you fill the whole plate. He sits you down in a seat at a mostly empty table, across from a small nervous man pushing his eggs around and around.

“What’s the news, Tech,” he says. “Seen any rabbits lately?”

“No,” Tech says, without looking up. “What do you want?”

“I want you to meet the new guy!” John says. He slaps you on the back, nearly knocking you into your food. “Remind you of anybody?”

Tech glances up at you, watery blue eyes and a vagueness that seems to be looking right through you. “No one,” he says. “Nothing.”

“Come on now,” John cajoles, pushing the plate out from underneath Tech. “It’s _good_ to confront your compulsions.”

Tech considers the table, for a long moment, and then he looks up at you again. This time he really seems to be looking. You don’t know what to say—the whole thing bewilders you. You can almost see him clicking _on_ somehow, clear instead of cloudy.

 “White knight,” he says. “The white knight.”

“Really?” John says, with his eyebrow cocked. “I woulda said the opposite.”

 “With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,” Tech murmurs, “Who seemed distracted with his woe…”

“Oops,” John says. “There he goes. Looks like he’s not as far along in his therapy as I thought.”

You give John a look. It’s difficult to tell if he just _likes_ setting people off, or if there’s some method to his madness. Zsaz was clearly a case of using what tools were available, but you remember the inmate in the hall too, and John thumping the locked door like a child tapping the glass of an aquarium.

“Come tell me how you live,” murmurs Tech, “and what it is you do…”

“Forget him,” John says, turning back to you. “He’ll get it together before group. Speaking of which, you get to skip don’t you, you lucky duck?”

“Dr. Leland was right,” you say. “It’s not a good idea, after everything yesterday.”

You look around the mess hall, counting the pairs of glaring eyes centered right on you. Security doesn’t seem to have been stepped up much. You spot some orderlies in the wings, but they’re only orderlies. Either they don’t have the resources to protect you, or they just don’t care. Or worse.

But it’s staying quiet isn’t it? You give the room a second look. Despite how many people are trying to drill your head open with their eyes, not a single one of them is making any moves. In fact, no one has made a move since that first brawl with the taser. With Zsasz, it was _John_ who opened fire. Your gaze slides to him, to find him watching you back, and keenly.

“Nobody,” you say, “messes with you much, do they John?”

“Oh, I’m a model patient,” John says, casually. “Who would want to mess with little old me?”

There’s still blood splattered on the floor of the room that was meant to be yours. You don’t buy that misdirection for a moment.

“I was just thinking…” you say, “how everybody’s given me a pretty wide berth since Leland assigned you to me. Since you intercepted those guys, really.”

John drums the table with his fingers, not quite irritated but certainly not calm either. “They _know_ better,” he says, no longer looking at you. “They know better. Hazing is the tool of a cult mentality.”

“I don’t think that was _hazing_ ,” you say.

John shrugs you off. He’s definitely agitated. “They’re _lucky_ ,” he mutters, “if you hadn’t needed checking up on, I would have—If I’d heard about it later, I’d have ripped their _nails_ out.”

You kind of want to ask how he’d expect to manage that, but you are also a little bit afraid of the answer. He perks right up, anyways, before you can settle on whether to push it.

“But you’re fine!” he says, still watching you even as he pushes Tech’s plate back into his distracted hands. “And you’ll keep being fine, don’t you worry about a thing! Just leave it _all_ to me.”

He’s smiling. His mouth is so wide you could count his perfect teeth. With every minute you spend in his company, you suspect more and more that he isn’t any ordinary patient here. You think of his cat’s cradle, the space at the center of the mandala that every twist of string orbits. But maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself.

There’s a distorted bell over the intercom. “Ah,” he says. “That’s group! Catch you later, buddy.”

When the orderly comes to escort you back to your cell, you follow him quietly. There’s a lot to unravel in this place, you’re quickly finding out.

 

 

 

Leland wants to know about your childhood. You are vague without being dishonest, disinterested without being rude—you tell her what she already knows. She wants to know about your relationship with Oswald. You’re candid enough. It feels good to tell someone what he’s done to you, although you obviously can’t tell her the whole story. She doesn’t stump you until, out of nowhere, she bring up John.

“And how are you getting along with him?” she asks you. “Any concerns?”

“Concerns?” you say. “Isn’t he your favorite patient?”

Leland frowns, as if she’s disappointed with you. “Bruce,” she says. “I’m a professional. If John has made you uncomfortable somehow, I need to know about it.”

 

     John is bad news  
     I can handle him  
     >I'm not sure what he wants

 

This is your chance to get out of the whole fraught affair. Or it would be, if you took it. But you don’t take it. Part of you thinks that you ought to; John is trouble, and you don’t at all like the way he talks about your father. But the other part of you, the part that wins out, is begrudgingly intrigued. You didn’t realize it until someone offered you an alternative, but—you’ve already been planning to see him again, you’re drawn back to him in some way that feels remarkably literal. As if you are physically being tugged at. You think again of the cat’s cradle.

“Is he like this with all the new patients?” you ask her.

She considers that for a moment. “He takes an interest, generally speaking. He’s been here the longest of any non-catatonic patient, so he sees himself as a sort of mentor. But no, to be quite frank, it isn’t usually like this.”

“How is it different?” you ask, leaning forward in your chair.

Leland regards you with her cool doctor’s eyes. “This is the most engaged I’ve seen you in nearly fifty minutes, Bruce. What are you thinking about?”

You flatten your features. “I just want to know that I’m safe with him, doctor. Sharing a cell with an inmate—”

“Patient,” Leland says. “Room. And judging from what I’ve seen, John is the one who ought to be worried for his safety, not you.”

You sigh. “I’m not _dangerous_ ,” you tell her. “You’re not… seeing me at my best. I promise you, once I’ve had a chance to get this stuff out of my system, you’ll see how stable I am.”

Leland flips through her copious notes. “Bruce, it’s not just the violence. Which, by the way, speaks for itself in my opinion. In less than half an hour you’ve told me so many unhealthy things about yourself that I’ve almost run out of paper, and I don’t think you even _realize_ what they were.”

You pull back. “I haven’t told you anything,” you say.

“Yes, you’ve been less than forthcoming with the details of your day to day schedule, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s your _attitude_. Look, ten minutes ago you told me that you often go full days before actually sleeping. You do realize that’s a kind of self harm, don’t you?”

“I’m a busy man,” you tell her, helplessly. “I have to. Sometimes there’s just too much to do.”

“And you have to do _all_ of it?” Leland remarks.

“Yes,” you say.

She shakes her head. “Why?” she says. “Why, when it’s clearly wearing you down to nothing?”

You’re still thinking about that as you make your way back to the room. Because nobody else can, you want to tell her. Because that’s what you’re _for_.

John looks up from a book as you pause at the door, feeling all at once like such an outsider that not even your body wants to go any further. John immediately sets his book off to the side, page unmarked. The cover of says _House of Leaves_. It’s a suspiciously heavy book for an environment like this.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” he says. “Therapy didn’t go so good?”

“It was fine,” you say automatically.

John gets to his feet and ushers you inside, toeing the door closed behind you. He leads you over to his bed and sets you down on the mattress, crawling up to sit beside you like a cat. “Hey, you can tell me about it,” he says, patting your knee. “Don’t be shy. Honesty is the backbone of a healthy relationship.”

You give him a sideways look. His hand is still on your knee, as if he’s forgotten it there.

“Dr. Leland and I just disagree about some basic underpinnings of my personality,” you tell him. “It’s fine. I don’t expect her to understand.”

“Ahh,” John says. “She started asking you about that nasty little dark thing inside you, huh?”

“I don’t have a _nasty little dark thing_ ,” you say, scowling. “I’m not my father, whatever you think he was. I don’t know how to make you people understand this.”

“ _Daddy_ issues,” John says, sympathetically. He squeezes your knee—definitely not forgotten, then. He ignores the way you’re glaring at him. “Okay,” he says, “you’re your own man, I understand.”

“Do you?” you mutter.

“Sure,” he says, bumping your shoulder companionably. “It’s always just you, at the end of the day. Nobody can live your life for you, Dr. Leland says.”

You look away. Sometimes that life feels like it's sheering off bits of you with each choice. It seems like it’s always one bad option from a pile of worse.

You have a feeling he already knows what you’re thinking.

 

 

 

Lunch passes without incident. You meet more inmates. You meet more staff. Most of them seem to be giving you the evil eye as they talk around you and over you. You certainly have a legacy here, in this forgotten old building, whether you want it or not. You think a lot about the Arkhams, and about your father—allegations, memories, a hesitance that is starting to feel cowardly in your own throat. In the afternoon they have optional crafts for people with recreational privileges. Someone tries to stab you with a magic maker in a fit of pique and ends up framed for worse by the time John is done with them. You feel like that was unnecessary. It was only a magic marker. But John is livid and already done with the deed by the time that you even realize there was a plot—he grabs your shoulder with a grip tight enough to leave bruises as they drag the patient away. You don’t think he’s trying to hurt you. It almost feels like he’s afraid someone will rip you away from him.

During dinner, you get in a shouting match with someone who has opinions about your company and your life choices and your mother’s sexual history, and a couple orderlies swoop in to break it up just before it can spiral into an out-and-out altercation. Your vision is swimming by the time it’s all done, blue and red and nonsense like a 3D movie in the raw. You dig your nails into your scalp and try to calm down.

“Almost had it there,” John whispers, closer to your ear than you remember him being.

You grit your teeth. The fight broke up before it could start, there’s no one for you to take a swing at. You’ve got to hold it down, you’ve got to—

John is saying something to an orderly, and then he’s guiding you up from your chair, down through the hallway, back into the semi-privacy of your shared room. You feel a surge of gratefulness that froths and presses at your insides in the middle of all this rage, unable to find a release valve.

You spend a long time just breathing. God you hope this wears off soon. You’re angry enough without having Vale’s chemical irritant making a mess out of your brain.

“Thank you,” you manage, eventually.

“What’re friends for?” John says brightly, unbothered by any of the episode. You realize he’s been absently rubbing small circles into your shoulder for a while now, as you lean against the wall. “We should really do something about that mouthy little _toad_ ,” he says, voice flickering dark for a moment. “If he thinks he can talk to a friend of mine that way—”

“It’s fine,” you say. You sound ragged in your own ears. “He’s got enough on his plate, living in this hellhole.”

John tuts. “That’s awfully negative,” he says. “You’re homesick, I bet.”

Maybe you are. You miss Alfred’s stolid support, his dry understanding. You miss the people at the office, the office itself, the freedom to get up and go wherever you want to. You’re homesick, you guess, but only in the sense that all of Gotham is your home. You miss the streetlights and the gargoyles and the sounds of traffic as much as you miss your own dusty house.

“Mm, I knew it,” John says. “Don’t worry, it’s normal. You’ve just got to ride it out. Eventually you’ll see Arkham is a kind of home too.”

“I’m not going to be here that long,” you remind him.

He pulls back his hand. “No,” he says, “no, of course not. I just meant that you would! _If_ you stayed. Which you won’t.”

You give up and sit down on your bed. You can feel every single spring in the mattress, and you know that it doesn’t like your weight. Last night you half expected one of them to pop through the plastic sheeting and stab you through the heart, like the vampire that you are not. Tonight you’re tempted to just sleep on the tile.

John’s bed is just as bad, unsurprisingly. You could hear him toss and turn every time you surfaced from sleep, startled by an unfamiliar sound. There is something about hearing springs squeak and murmur under another person’s body that feels uncomfortably intimate to you. It reminds you of college dormitories and one night stands.

“Cheer up!” John says, “I have big plans for tomorrow. I don’t want to give away the surprise, but think: _hall phone_.”

“Are you going to engineer another murder?” you ask him, startling yourself a little with the sharpness of it.

“It’s a surprise!” John laughs. “Jeeze, did you try to unwrap your Christmas presents early too?”

You sigh. You already know that if he tries something like that again, you’ll do the same damn thing. You can’t just let someone get stabbed in front of you, regardless of how lethal it might or might not turn out to be. Your mission is important, but it’s not important enough to change that fact.

John sidles over closer. “Do you mind if I…?” he says.

You stare blankly at him. Mind if he what? Murders someone tomorrow? Yes, you mind.

He gestures uncomfortably at the spot beside you on your bed. “I’m learning to respect boundaries,” he tells you, looking all at once more abashed than you’ve ever seen him. You marvel at the change in him, his lowered head, his hunched shoulders, his anxious expression.

“You want to sit down?” you ask him.

“If you don’t mind,” he says, clasping his hands together in front of him. “Your bed is your personal space, and I respect that. I wouldn’t want you to think I go in for that kind of,” his voice goes from urgent to pitch dark, “ _horseplay_. Not me.”

You squint at him. You have no idea what he’s talking about.

“You can sit down,” you tell him, for some reason. Better not to ask yourself why.

Immediately he’s at your side, perched close enough to breathe in the air you breathe out. “Maybe when _I’m_ out, you can show _me_ around!”

It’s getting easier to know what to say to him. It doesn’t even hurt you, really, to say: “I know a couple good bars downtown, I guess.”

The way John lights up makes you feel like maybe you just passed a test. “I just knew it,” he says, “the moment I saw you. Friends forever.”

Then he sighs. “Shame you’re going tomorrow. I still have _so_ much to show you. You haven’t even met Crane!” He folds an arm over your shoulder, laying his cheek on his brightly colored sleeve. “What _we_ need to do,” he says, “is go out with a _bang_.”

“A bang,” you say. You are imagining improvised explosives. Out of all the people you deeply and viciously want to hurt lately, the unnerving thing is that John doesn’t make your list. Not even at all. You are trying to figure out what the _hell_ you’ll do if this man tries to blow up a building full of mental patients.

“A little something to remember me by,” he says. He looks up from underneath his pale lashes. His hand falls across your leg again, like an afterthought.

Oh.

Oh, so this is where the shoe drops. You really did not expect it to go anything like this. You take in the eagerness that practically oozes off him, the way he almost seems to vibrate with it as he leans forward, all but falling into your lap. What in the world do you do with this.

“John,” you say, carefully, “are you suggesting that you want to have sex with me?”

John pulls back a little, makes an offended little hmph. “That is _strictly_ against Arkham policy, Bruce. I’m a model patient.”

“I’m… confused,” you admit. “What is this, then?”

“ _Wellll_ ,” John says, opening up the hand that hangs between you, “this place is full of rules, rules, _rules_ , but there are always… _grey_ areas….”

 

     I'm not interested  
     That seems risky  
     >Do I have a choice in this?

Several things go through your head in that moment: one, you really don’t care at all about Arkham policy one way or another. You’re not a _real_ inmate. Two, you’re not sure how much is actually riding on this moment. Three, what _would_ John’s overwhelming enthusiasm look like underneath you, or over you, even?

“What if I say no?” you ask him.

Immediately he disengages, showing you his open palms in the universal sign language for _I come in peace_. “Hey,” he says, “no problem, buddy. I was kind of _hoping_ , well, maybe you’d be excited about it, but if you want to do something else instead, no worries.”

Actually he seems kind of put out now. You regard him carefully, the way he’s rubbing anxiously at his palm with the ball of his thumb, the way he doesn’t seem to be looking at you anymore.

“What do you mean by grey areas?”

He perks right back up. “I could show you,” he says. “Arkham policy is _no_ penetration, period, under any circumstances, but they’re not too specific about the rest of it!”

You give him a doubtful look. Just like handing a shivv to an inmate isn’t _technically_ against the rules, huh? Just the part where you make it, or you use it.

“Sure, a couple of the other guys got yelled at for trying it, sure, but not _me_. So anyways, nobody’s ever told _me_ it was against the rules. I’ve never tried anything in here.” John purses his lips. “Slim pickings,” he adds.

You decide to level with him, since he’s been nothing but helpful since you showed up. Even if his idea of _help_ is sometimes worse than the alternative. “John," you say, "my head is pretty messed up right now. I don’t like what happens if I get my heart rate up while this poison is floating around inside of me, and I don't even want to know what would come with a sudden surge of hormones—things could go _very_ badly _._ I could wind up hurting you.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” John says. “I’m tougher than I look, ya know.”

You eye his lean form, the rangy muscles down his arms. “Even if that was true,” you say. “No. I don’t want to risk it.”

John jumps up and paces the room, his bare feet skating over the tile. “That’s fine,” he says, “Okay. That's fine. I’ll think of something else to do for you. I’ll just have to get creative!”

You frown. If he’s just trying to do something for you, to make you like him, the weird thing is that you kind of already do. There’s no point in all this. “Come here,” you say.

Instead of returning to the bed, though, he drops like a demolished building, landing on his knees at your feet. You wince. It doesn’t seem to bother him, but you know that would absolutely _kill_ you. Maybe it’s the surge of sympathy, but what you do here is put out your hand and brush it over his swept-back hair. You watch him lean into it.

“How would you feel about it,” you say, surprising yourself, “if I were to just touch you. Just that?”

John laughs nervously. “Um,” he says, “why?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “It just feels like something I might want to do.”

John keeps glancing at the hand that just brushed past his ear. “A healthy relationship is supposed to be comprised of reciprocal favors,” he says.

“Okay,” you say, trying to keep up with his mental gymnastics, “would I owe you something, or would you owe me?”

“Well _I_ would owe _you_ , _ob_ viously.”

“Personally, I disagree, but if it bothers you—” you pause, thinking back to the conversation in the rec room, the favor. “You can do something for me, if you… when you get out. Okay?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he surges forward, hands pressing down into your thighs. “Well if you’re _offering_ ,” he says, “it’d be rude of me to say no.”

Last chance to back out. Who are you kidding? You’re not a passenger in this sinking ship, you’re the captain.

“I’m offering,” you say. “Please, get up off the floor?”

He does. He throws himself back onto your bed, in a protest of a hundred tiny shrieks. You swear, if he breaks your bed, you’re making him sleep in it. He starts wriggling out of his shirts, tossing them across the room in quick succession. He opens up his arms, as if he’s reaching for you. With a knot in your stomach, or maybe something worse, you climb up over him.

You’re starting to worry that you’re going to get yourself in trouble with Vale’s poison after all. Your heart beat—the way he hooks his arms over your neck, the way he looks up at you like you hung the moon, like you can do no wrong—

“What a _view_ ,” he says, with a quiet whistle.

_What a view_ , you think, with an alarming mixture of apprehension and desire.

 

 

 

As John comes, he clutches you to himself, all his needy whining noises quieted to a single reedy gasp. His nails buried in the back of your scalp seem ready to crack you open. If your vision is swimming, you know it’s just the poison, but you also know that the poison is triggered by arousal—deep inside your blood, part of you _wants_ him to crack you open.

He slumps, but his grip barely flags. Against your ear, he murmurs: “I _knew_ you would be fun.”

  * John will remember this



 

 

 

What actually happens in the morning, which is not a bomb thank god, is that first thing John simply opens up the door that should have been locked and makes a sweeping gesture at the hall beyond. He winks at you, his hair still mussed. You don't know how he did that, and when you press him he just shrugs mysteriously and returns to his strange book. The pages you catch a glance at have the helter skelter twisted formatting of something a patient here might have written. You definitely get the feeling Dr. Leland wouldn't like him to have it.

You make your phone call. Alfred picks up immediately, even though it's five in the morning and you know he doesn't get up for another hour. You reassure him, you lay out a solution, and then you resign yourself to a goodbye. Your heart aches for the stress you're putting him under.

By the time evening rolls around, Leland has gotten word from the commissioner's office that you are being released in order to testify in an upcoming investigation. If there is some way to make her understand that this isn't just a rich man buying his way out of justice, you wish you knew what it was. She hands you your discharge papers with an air of disappointment so thick it nearly makes you choke. As frustrating as she's been, she's clearly one of the good ones. She's trying. You respect that. It doesn't change the situation.

Alfred seems to be focused on getting you out of the building as fast as possible. He doesn't stop to look at anything or talk to anyone, staying cleanly out of range of any grabbing hands as he marches forward. It's you who stops, just as you're about to pass into the nurse's office to drop off your uniform. The gate to the rec room is just a few feet away, and behind it, with his arms looped through the bars, John is watching you.

He winks.

You find yourself drawn his way. When you're long gone from here, living your real life out there, and you think of this place, you suspect that you will think of him more than anything else. Already you can feel his presence swallowing all memory of halls or rooms or schedules, of the very building itself. John reaches up and pats your cheek, which is odd because you don't remember walking all the way over to him. 

"Parting is such sweet sorrow," he says. "Still, can't say we didn't show you a good time!"

From beyond you, Alfred says, "Master Bruce, are you coming?"

John leans his head against the bars, smiling one of his knowing, dark smiles. You take a step back, and then another. You turn and catch up with Alfred, where he's holding the door to the office open for you.

"Have fun!" John calls after you. "Remember, it's a madhouse out there!"

As the door swings shut behind you, Alfred says, "Who was that fellow?"

But you don't know where you would even _begin,_ and so, ultimately, you say nothing at all. 


	2. Alternate Path {Dark}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People seemed interested in different dialogue paths, and I eventually settled on this as my best option for providing those. I'm looking into twine too but that could take a while sooooo

>RESUME

John throws himself back onto his bed (not yours, you notice). He crosses his legs. "Well, the rec room was pretty fun today, don't you think?"

"I don't generally categorize being shivved that way, actually," you say.

"You don't?" he says, tapping the corner of his mouth in a thoughtful way. " _I_ was thoroughly entertained. Let me just say, it is a _pleasure_ to watch you work. You really got right in there! And Zsasz, he's no toddling bedwetter like _some_ of these numbskulls. He's a real piece of work!"

"Yeah," you say. "Thank for _that_."

He sits forward. "Tsk tsk, there's no need to take that tone with your good buddy. It's not my fault you missed your window of opportunity. Not that I'm not glad to have a little more quality time with you, don't get me wrong, but you've got places to _be_ , people to _see_. Anyways," John adds. "I think you _do_ like it."

"Like what?" you say.

He twists back and makes a motion like slamming a bat into something, throws his whole body into it. "The _violence_ , Brucie. The action! I saw you out there, you're a _livewire_ ," he laughs. "I like that about you. You know _just_ what to do with that body of yours."

    I couldn't just ignore it  
    It wasn't that impressive  
    >No one could enjoy that

"Who would enjoy something like that?" you say. "I thought I was going to get stabbed."

John nods sagely. "I bet your heart _really_ started pumping, huh? I bet your blood went _hot_."

You look uncomfortably off in the opposite direction. You're not a big fan of listening to people talk about your blood even on a good day, and this is not a good day. Usually it means they'd like to see it on the outside of you. You can't tell if the way John is leaning forward, like he's half a twitch away from climbing over the bed towards you, means that he's thinking along the same lines, or still stranger ones.

"I don't want to talk about it," you say.

John nods, again, and then retreats. "That's fair," he says.

And that's it. He seems satisfied to leave it there, digging in his mattress for a skein of red yarn which he twists around his fingers in a bizarre cat's cradle, quietly manipulating the threads until they resemble a mandala.

 

 

 

"And how are you getting along with him?" Dr. Leland asks you. "Any concerns?"

"Concerns?" you say. "Isn't he your favorite patient?"

Leland frowns, as if she's disappointed with you. "Bruce," she says. "I'm a professional. If John has made you uncomfortable somehow, I need to know about it."

    I can handle him  
    I'm not sure what he wants  
    >John is bad news

"I _don't_ feel comfortable, as a matter of fact," you say. "John is trouble, surely anyone can see that?"

"John is our most improved patient," Leland says, "but that doesn't mean he can't make mistakes of his own. What has he done to make you so uncomfortable?"

You think of all the dark glances, the insinuations, the exhortations of favors. You don't want to tell Leland about those things, because even you don't really understand what they mean. So you say, "I don't like the way he talks about my father."

Leland frowns, as if she's biting her tongue. What she says is, "It's... understandable that you wouldn't appreciate someone speaking ill of your late father."

"With everything that's happened," you say, " _ill_ I could handle."

"So what is it that's really the problem, Bruce?"

You shift in your folding chair. There's not much to hide behind in this bare, tiled office. "It seems like he _approves_ of it, the stuff everyone says my father did." You take a deep breath. "I just want to know that I'm safe with him, doctor. Sharing a cell with an inmate-"

"Patient," Leland says. "Room. And judging from what I've seen, John is the one who ought to be worried for his safety, not you."

 

 

 

Oh.

Oh, so this is where the shoe drops. You really did not expect it to go anything like this. You take in the eagerness that practically oozes off him, the way he almost seems to vibrate with it as he leans forward, all but falling into your lap. What in the world do you do with this.

"John," you say, carefully, "are you suggesting that you want to have sex with me?"

John pulls back a little, makes an offended little hmph. "That is _strictly_ against Arkham policy, Bruce. I'm a model patient."

"I'm... confused," you admit. "What is this, then?"

" _Wellll_ ," John says, opening up the hand that hangs between you, "this place is full of rules, rules, _rules_ , but there are always... _grey_ areas...."

    I'm not interested  
    Do I have a choice in this?  
   >That seems risky

You look up at the camera in the corner of the ceiling. Its black glass eye stares vacantly back at you.

"That seems like a good way to get into even bigger trouble than I'm already in," you tell him, because it's easier to talk around the problem than actually put your hands on it.

John follows your glance, and abruptly bursts out laughing. "Oh," he says, "that thing hasn't worked in _ages!_ Some of them just don't. It's not in the budget to replace them all, so they just put us well behaved guys in the blind spots and hope for the best. Look!" He leaps up to stand on the bed, springs squeaking angrily under his feet. He lifts his arm to his mouth, and without even a flinch of hesitation, sinks his teeth into the meat of his wrist.

You snatch up after him, grabbing his elbow and forcing his arm away from his teeth. The skin there is as red as a burn, welting in the shape of his perfect square teeth. A fleck of blood is welling up where the tip of a molar dug in just far enough. The only thing stopping him from biting the whole thing right open is the lack of spare skin on his lean body. He's laughing again, pliant in your grip as if he never had his lightning-crack moment of mania.

"Don't _do_ that," you say, rubbing at his welted flesh. It's going to bruise fiercely purple in a few minutes, as purple as his whimsical undershirt. "What are you going to tell Dr. Leland?"

John cocks his head to the side. "Do you hear that?" he sing-songs.

You pause and listen. "What am I supposed to be hearing?"

He grins at you, and plants his hand on your shoulder. He uses you to swing himself down off the mattress, his grip lingering long after his feet have hit the floor. "Silence! There ought to be a fleet of orderlies pitter-pattering their way over here, but you will notice! The hall is silent!"

You look from him to the door, and back to him. He's still holding you by the shoulder, and it doesn't feel like a friendly gesture anymore. It feels like a middle-school slow dance, the frightening moment before you have to figure out what to do with the girl in front of you, who is expecting _something_ but _what_ you just don't know.

"So whaddaya say?" John whispers, despite the fact that no one is here but you two. "I can keep a secret."

"John," you say, "my head is pretty messed up right now. Things could go _very_ badly _._ I could wind up hurting you."

"Oh, I don't mind," John says. "I'm tougher than I look, ya know."

You aren't sure what to think of that either. You look over the lean muscles and the sharp corners, the welt on his wrist now leaking a thin trickle of blood. Does it make you a bad person that part of you wants to see him bent and broken, the smile washed off his face? He worries you. He worries you, not because of what you think he will do to you (here is why you couldn't answer Dr. Leland's question), he worries you because you are afraid of yourself. You _know_ there is darkness in you. You don't like the way he peels you open and drags it inch by inch up to the surface.

You should say no. You should say no, but you can't. What he's digging for is real, and the closer he gets to it, the hungrier it becomes.

You grab him by the collar and throw him onto his bed, where he lets out a delighted gasp and falls open under you. You look down at him, as you throw a leg over his hips. He looks back up at you. Your vision is already going red-tinted and wobbly, your ears already starting to ring.

"We'll see about that," you tell him, running a thumb over the bob of his throat.

"Oh," he breathes. "I _knew_ you had it in you."

  * John will remember this



 

 

 

In the end, you were wrong to worry about the cameras. What you should have been worrying about was the doctor who takes one look at John's puffy arm, his split lip, and immediately slams you in solitary confinement. To be honest, after the rollercoaster of a weekend you've had, it's a relief. You sit on the floor of the padded room, and you touch your mouth from time to time, when your mind drifts back to the night before. After a few hours, one of the other doctors comes to inform you that you've been deemed a thoroughly disruptive influence, and they're discharging you as quick as they get a notary in here to sign the paperwork. You're bemused. Was that really all it took?

Alfred, when he arrives, seems to be focused on getting you out of the building as fast as possible. He doesn't stop to look at anything or talk to anyone, staying cleanly out of range of any grabbing hands as he marches forward. It's you who stops, just as you're about to pass into the nurse's office to drop off your uniform. The gate to the rec room is just a few feet away, and behind it, with his arms looped through the bars, John is watching you.

He winks. There's a patch of gauze taped to his arm, and a red split in his pale lips that reminds you of something you won't name, flesh opened to reveal flesh. Dr. Leland is watching him from farther back in the rec room, disapproval and worry on her face. When she turns her gaze on you, it scorches.

Your feet won't seem to move from the tile. A few steps ahead, Alfred pauses as well and says, "Master Bruce, are you coming?"

You give John one last look. He raises his patched arm and waves at you, showing all his teeth.

"Come back any time," he sings after you. "Re _mem_ ber! There's always a place for you here!"

As the door swings shut behind you, Alfred says, "Who was that fellow?"

You avoid his eye. "No one," you say. "No one important."


	3. Alternate Path {Neutral}

>RESUME

"Anyways," John says. "I think you _do_ like it."

"Like what?" you say.

He twists back and makes a motion like slamming a bat into something, throws his whole body into it. "The _violence_ , Brucie. The action! I saw you out there, you're a _livewire_ ," he laughs. "I like that about you. You know _just_ what to do with that body of yours."

    It wasn't that impressive  
    No one could enjoy that  
    >I couldn't just ignore it

"I couldn't walk away," you tell him. "Someone was going to get hurt, thanks to you."

"Oh, probably," John agrees with a smile.

"That doesn't bother you? You don't feel responsible?"

"Responsible?" John says. He tilts his head at you, bemused. "All I did was give Zsasz the knife. He's the one who decided what to do with it. He has," John sighs, "a _lot_ more treatment to work through."

Zsasz is supposed to have done something horrible before he was booked here. You don't need to know the details to get the idea. You frown at John, and you say, "Isn't the whole point of the insanity plea that he _isn't_ culpable?"

John's smile drops all at once, falling into something heavy and dark. His teeth are still showing, but it's a warning now, not a welcome. "We're always responsible, Brucie," he says, "or we never are."

And that's it. He seems satisfied to leave it there, digging in his mattress to find a skein of red yarn which he twists around his fingers in a bizarre cat's cradle. For the first time, you find yourself wondering who John _is_ , not just what his name might be.

 

 

 

"And how are you getting along with him?" Dr. Leland asks you. "Any concerns?"

"Concerns?" you say. "Isn't he your favorite patient?"

Leland frowns, as if she's disappointed with you. "Bruce," she says. "I'm a professional. If John has made you uncomfortable somehow, I need to know about it."

    I'm not sure what he wants  
    John is bad news  
    >I can handle him

"John isn't anything I can't handle," you tell her. You think that the worst is over, after yesterday, but still. If he tries anything else, you'll cut the problem out at the root. There won't be a second rec room incident.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Leland says, tapping her short nails against the clipboard. "I'm taking a risk, you know, putting you two together like this."

"I'm not particularly pleased about sharing a cell with an inmate myself," you remark, pursing your lips to keep it at that.

"Patient," Leland says. "Room. And judging from what I've seen, _John_ is the one who ought to be worried for his safety, not you."

 

 

 

"John," you say, carefully, "are you suggesting that you want to have sex with me?"

John pulls back a little, makes an offended little hmph. "That is _strictly_ against Arkham policy, Bruce. I'm a model patient."

"I'm... confused," you admit. "What is this, then?"

" _Wellll_ ," John says, opening up the hand that hangs between you, "this place is full of rules, rules, _rules_ , but there are always... _grey_ areas..."

    Do I have a choice in this?  
    That seems risky  
    >I'm not interested

There are so many reasons why that is a bad idea. Vale's poison. John's unclear motives. The facility itself. It's not as if part of you isn't a _little_ intrigued, it's only that you're not insane. There's no way this wouldn't come back to bite you, just like his little favor did before.

"No thanks," you say.

You watch as John's face falls. All at once he jumps up, his bare feet skating over the tile as he paces the room. "That's fine," he says, "Okay. That's fine. I'll think of something else to do for you. I'll just have to get creative!"

You don't think you like the idea of John getting "creative". His feet go back and forth, over the floor. "Why are you trying to do something for me?" you ask him, softening a little. The explosion you were expecting never does come. Instead, he seems genuinely worried. Maybe you've misjudged this.

John laughs uncomfortably. "You're going back out into the big mad world tomorrow!" he says, spreading his hands. "There's so much to do! It'll be so exciting, and-” he pauses, looking up at the tiny window above you both, black as volcanic glass. "And you won't have any reason to think about your old pal, back in Arkham."

"Believe me," you say, "I'm not about to forget this experience."

John turns back to you. "That's nice of you to say, buddy, but it's a different world out there. I know it. That's why I'm gonna get out. To be where the action is."

You try not to feel guilty for the fact that you definitely don't plan to call or write once you're out of here. And why should you? You keep having to remind yourself that John isn't your friend, he's just some guy who knows too much about your life and thinks he has some kind of right to a place in it. He's so sure of himself, it half convinces you too.

"Look," you say, "don't stress out about it. Let's just settle down, okay? Read your book."

John glances at the bed, where his book lies beneath the flat pillow. He runs a soothing hand through his own hair.

"Sure, buddy," he says. "If that's what you want."

He sits back down and digs out the book. You watch his fingers anxiously rifle through the pages, accidentally ripping one of them as he pulls too hard on it. It's not your fault. It _isn't_. He's got his own problems, and you're not responsible for them.

You frown to yourself. You don't like the way that feels in your head. Are you responsible, or are you not? In a way you suppose you agree with him after all--either you're always responsible, or you never are.

A beat passes. You clear your throat. "Uh," you say, "do you want to... read me a little bit of that?"

John looks up. His fingers hover over the ripped page, and for a moment you can't read anything on his usually expressive face. Then he turns his attention back down to the page, skimming over it with a finger. He grins.

"Alright," he says. "Here, you'll _like_ this bit. It's about a monster."

  *  John will remember this



 

 

Before John can enact any kind of nefarious scheme the next day, you actually get a call from your lawyers. They tell you that since Alfred is your former guardian, legally your next of kin, state law allows him to remove you from a Baker Act type situation at his own discretion. They're pulling you out tonight. You spend the rest of the day trying to keep out of trouble, just in case someone with pull decides you're worth fighting to keep behind bars.

Alfred, when he arrives, seems to be focused on getting you out of the building as fast as possible. You follow him as well as you can in slippers, memorizing the floors and the ceilings as you pass underneath them, perhaps because you want to prove John wrong. You won't call, but you won't forget either. As you pass the gate to the rec room, on your way out, John catches your eye.

You don't stop.

Behind you, you hear him call: "I'll be seeing you, Brucie!"

As the door swings shut behind you, Alfred says, "Who was that fellow?"

The cool blue light of the nurse's station washes over you. You pull your uniform shirt over your head and fold it over, eyeing the Arkham logo on the breast. "Honestly?" you say. "I have no idea."


End file.
